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November 25, 1980. SEPARATION-INDIVIDUATION AND AGGRESSION (Abraham A. Brill Memorial Lecture). John B. McDevitt, M.D.
Dr. McDevitt examined aggression and its vicissitudes in the sense of "behaviors, attitudes, emotions, and fantasies that are object-directed, hostile, and have the aim of hurting the object." His findings were based on inferences drawn from the interaction of mothers and children during the first three years of life, as observed in the research nursery begun by Dr. Margaret Mahler. Building upon the previously reported findings about the child's libidinal investment in the mother and the development of object and self constancy, Dr. McDevitt traced the